Unlike most sensible working people, our Saturday morning began with our alarm clock going off at 430am. Great. The positive side of this early start, though, was that we had travelled to Mumbai airport, flown to Aurangabad and were sitting in the Taj hotel having breakfast shortly after 8am.
Aurangabad in itself is not an exceptional tourist destination, but it is teeming with tourists, and for good reason. Aurangabad is the base from which travellers visit the magnificent caves at Ajanta and Ellora, both of which are world heritage sites and can be visited in day trips from the city.
We planned to cover both sites in one weekend, which we had been told would be a push, but we had arranged to travel back into Mumbai early on Monday morning to maximise our cave time.
Following breakfast on Saturday, after which we felt slightly more human given the early start, we set off to visit Ellora, the closer of the two sets of caves to Aurangabad. Our friendly driver was a young local and was delighted by our (limited) attempts to speak Hindi as we seemed to be the first foreigners he had met who had attempted this! Our car journey therefore turned into a Hindi coaching session which was slightly taxing but all good fun.
We passed by an impressive fort, Daulatabad, although didn't make the ascent as our driver was very keen that our time would be best spent at Ellora. A sharp hairpin bend on the route revealed a truck which had not quite made it round the bend, though the owner was unscathed and happily sitting on the truck to guard its contents.
Ellora consists of a long line of caves which are between 500 and 1000 years old. The caves were carved out of a single piece of rock, from the top down, so rock was literally scooped out from the top. The sculptures and carvings in the caves are simply awesome, particularly in the main temple (cave 16) which it took ten generations of builders to complete. The caves are grouped into three sections; the Jain, the Hindu and the Buddhist, although it is the Hindu caves which are the most ornate and spectacular.
The most popular caves were busy, both with tourists and numerous hawkers selling small model elephants, but it was easy to leave the crowds by visiting the less prominent caves off the beaten track.
Once we had finished at Ellora, our driver was keen to get back to the city (he was with us for a half day trip only) and we were keen to visit another attraction of Ellora, the "mini Taj Mahal" before returning to the hotel. This was built by Aurangazeb, the founder of the city, who had visited the original Taj Mahal and wanted his own. We haven't seen the main Taj Mahal yet, but this one was pretty good.
Slightly less busy than the Taj
A close up
After a busy and hot morning, a short afternoon nap turned into a three hour sleep, after which we tried out the hotel gym and had a lovely meal in the rather good Chinese restaurant. A highlight was the elderly American couple next to us who complained to the staff that one of their dishes was slightly spicy and this hadn't been highlighted on the menu. This is probably not the most appropriate complaint to make in India...
On Sunday, we made the two hour journey to Ajanta with our next driver, a friendly local who I'd found recommended on Trip Advisor. He spoke excellent English and could tell us a lot about the history of the local area, as well as coach us on our Hindi. He advised us to throw all grammar out of the window to speak Hindi in Bombay and just listen to the locals instead. Hmm. We did quite a bit of pronunciation, which he happily informed us we are extremely bad at!
The Ajanta caves were simply fascinating. Whilst they are not quite as big or ornately carved as the main caves at Ellora, I found their story and setting enchanting. Ajanta comprises 30 caves which are set in a horseshoe shape around the curve of a river in a steep valley. These are all Buddhist caves and are older than Ellora, dating between 200BC and 500-600AD. The carvings in the caves are not particularly complex, but some of the caves are adorned with incredibly intricate frescos telling ancient stores, which have been remarkably well preserved to this day.
The caves were discovered by an English explorer, John Smith, in the 19th century. The story goes that he was hunting tigers and discovered one of the caves when the shot he fired (and the tiger) disappeared into one of the caves. He went to have a look and discovered the caves concealed in the dense jungle. These had been abandoned hundreds of years previously, owing to the decline of Buddhism and migration of the residents to the new caves at Ellora.
We hired a guide at Ajanta; an elderly guide who had been working there since 1967 and was well known and respected by all the other staff at the caves, who stopped to speak with him throughout our tour. His explanation of the paintings enhanced our visit although I did find some of the messages rather contradictory. I couldn't quite understand how renouncing all material things for a simple life in a cave fits with pictures and sculptures of scantily-clad women in the caves, but our guide seemed to think that this all make sense. I'm not convinced. I also enjoyed his tails of Ajanta 40 years ago, where he would while away time (there weren't many tourists then...) shooting tigers and other wildlife in the valley below, which was teeming with animals. There is no sign of these animals now; the decline of the tiger has been addressed far, far too late in India.
After our tour, we explored the caves not covered by our guide and climbed to the main viewpoint overlooking the caves, from where John Smith first made his discovery. Again, we met locals who loved to hear us speak Hindi, but these ones were keen to sell us lots of tat too, so we didn't spend too long at the top of the hill.
The key difference between Ajanta and Ellora and everywhere that we've been previously was the number of foreigners. Up to now, we have been used to being either the only white visitors, or have certainly been in a significant minority. This was not true in Aurangabad, and it was the first place where I've seen lots of Japanese, Korean and Chinese visitors too. This is owing to the importance of these caves in Buddhism, both draw huge numbers of pilgrims each year.
At the end of a lovely weekend, we were up before 6am on Monday to catch our flight back to Mumbai ready for a week at work. Sadly for Phil, he first managed to leave his keys in the hotel car (which they kindly delivered back to the airport before we left) and then fell over and bashed his leg, just as it seemed to have recovered from the marathon. He did not take this well. Thankfully, it seems to be much better now and he is looking forward to running again soon.
